[meteorite-list] By Popular Demand................

[Mark Crawford]

I guess the question here is, do sellers have a right to anonymity, and 
if so, when does it outweigh the buyer's right to provenance?

As a collector I'm delighted to have more provenance, because it add to 
the interest of the piece, the future value, and gives me even more 
confidence that it's genuine.  As far as authenticity goes, however, in 
the case of people like Anne, I've already accepted the material is 
genuine because of the person doing the selling.  In terms of setting a 
model of behavious, I think as a general rule you would find that more 
trustworthy sellers would be more likely to provide sources, whereas 
less trustworthy ones wouldn't (or would plain lie!).  (This is NOT a 
suggestion that only shady characters wouldn't want to list their 
sources...)

But from a purely commercial point of view, I can't see how this could 
work. If dealer A is selling material for $50/g, and his source (B) is 
selling for $25/g, am I really going to approach A?  I'm going to be 
beating a path to B, as Martin points out, and demanding a better deal - 
and I'm going to put A in the 'taking the mickey' pile.  Not good for 
either A or B.  Or, if I happen to know that A is buying from C, and 
that C has a contact in NWA, I may try to cut out the middle man and go 
straight to the source.  Not good for anyone.

I think the whole idea puts an artificial spin to the market, and as 
long as you accept the reality that it /is/ a market, I don't think it's 
a workable option.

The exception I would argue for is historics - there is often so little 
material that I think it's fair and reasonable to expect a higher degree 
of proof.  But even then, for me the onus is on the buyer to request the 
information, rather than the seller to offer it up front. 


Mark

Impactika at aol.com wrote:
> Hello List-Members,
>
> After reading all the emails yesterday, I  decided there was only one thing I 
> could do: publish my sources.
>   
-- 
Mark's Meteorite Pages: http://meteorites.cc